When Overwatch's Newest Hero Will Be Available For Everybody

Blizzard Entertainment revealed when gamers will finally be able to play as Brigitte, the newest hero for Overwatch. The character is currently available through the public-test realm, but soon she'll be available for everybody on the PC, PS4 and Xbox One starting March 20th.

Blizzard revealed the news in a Facebook post. That post is attached to the video introducing the character design for Brigitte by lead concept artist at Blizzard, Ben Zhang.

Zhang talks about how the team already knew exactly what they wanted to do with her character design, since she had already been introduced into the world of Overwatch. It's true... before being revealed as a playable character we saw Brigitte in the short film cinematic that Blizzard put out for Reinhardt, which showcased how he lost his eye as a powerful young man and also how he learned some humility.

Reinhardt recounted the tale to Brigitte in the cinematic, and there players were able to see the brown-haired mechanic for the first time. Zhang explains that this is something they wanted to keep consistent with her look in the game, which included her freckles and strong physique, based on a hard-working mechanic who designed armor and repaired equipment until making her own power-suit and joining the fight on the battlefield.

Originally, the team made Brigitte's armor based on classical paladin's armor. She was decked out in silver and gold with a sun crest on the shield, and a purple waist cloak. However, the design didn't really fit in with the rest of Overwatch, and looked more like high-level armor from World of Warcraft.

Zhang and the rest of the crew tweaked the designs and changed the cloak to brown, more reminiscent of scrounging around in dirty garages, while also modifying the crest to a lion, replete with glowing clamps and powered energy flowing through the suit. There was also a change in the armor, going for a more industrial design instead of the smelted iron-works of the original paladin armor. It makes sense, given that Overwatch is set in the future, and the designs and plating would most certainly reflect more modern-day manufacturing than the old-school smelting process of blacksmithing from the middle ages.

After originally announcing that Brigitte would be joining the ever-expanding roster of characters in Blizzard's team-based shooter, she made her way into the PTU where select gamers were able to play-test her and offer Blizzard feedback on her abilities and play-style so that the team could balance her out before releasing her to the general public.

Brigitte will now be available starting March 20th for gamers playing on Xbox One, PS4 or PC. And she will fulfill the mixed role of being a support healer and support tank. It's an interesting role that not many characters fulfill, most are either DPS/tanks or healer/supports, so this time around you'll be able to both protect your teammates and lightly heal them. We'll see how well Brigitte impacts the meta game of Overwatch when she goes live next week.